Chapter 1 (p.12)
Before he went inside the airport building, he stopped, and turned, and watched. No one else got off the plane. The ground crew rolled the steps away, the door was closed, and it taxied off down the runway. Shadow stared at it until it took off, then he walked inside, to the Budget car rental desk, the only one open, and he rented what turned out, when he got to the parking lot, to be a small red Toyota.
Shadow unfolded the map they had given him. He spread it out on the passenger's seat. Eagle Point was about two hundred and fifty miles away, most of the journey on the freeway. He had not driven a car in three years.
The storms had passed, if they had come this far. It was cold and clear. Clouds scudded in front of the moon, and for a moment Shadow could not be certain whether it was the clouds or the moon that was moving.
He drove north for an hour and a half.
It was getting late. He was hungry, and when he realized how hungry he really was, he pulled off at the next exit, and drove into the town of Nottamun (pop. 1,301). He filled the gas-tank at the Amoco, and asked the bored woman at the cash register where the best bar in the area was—somewhere that he could get something to eat.
“Jack's Crocodile Bar,” she told him. “It's west on County Road N.”
“Crocodile Bar?”
“Yeah. Jack says they add character.” She drew him a map on the back of a mauve flyer, which advertised a chicken roast to raise money for a young girl who needed a new kidney. “He's got a couple of crocodiles, a snake, one a them big lizard things.”
“An iguana?”
“That's him.”
Through the town, over a bridge, on for a couple of miles, and he stopped at a low, rectangular building with an illuminated Pabst sign, and a Coca-Cola machine by the door.
The parking lot was half-empty. Shadow parked the red Toyota and went inside.
The air was thick with smoke and “Walkin' after Midnight” was playing on the jukebox. Shadow looked around for the crocodiles, but could not see them. He wondered if the woman in the gas station had been pulling his leg.
“What'll it be?” asked the bartender.
“You Jack?”
“It's Jack's night off. I'm Paul.”
“Hi, Paul. House beer, and a hamburger with all the trimmings. No fries.”
“Bowl of chili to start? Best chili in the state.”
“Sounds good,” said Shadow. “Where's the restroom?”
The man pointed to a door in the corner of the bar. There was a stuffed alligator head mounted on the door. Shadow went through the door.
It was a clean, well-lit restroom. Shadow looked around the room first; force of habit. (“Remember, Shadow, you can't fight back when you're pissing,” Low Key said, low-key as always, in the back of his head.) He took the urinal stall on the left. Then he unzipped his fly and pissed for an age, relaxing, feeling relief. He read the yellowing press clipping framed at eye-level, with a photo of Jack and two alligators.
There was a polite grunt from the urinal immediately to his right, although he had heard nobody come in.
The man in the pale suit was bigger standing than he had seemed sitting on the plane beside Shadow. He was almost Shadow's height, and Shadow was a big man. He was staring ahead of him. He finished pissing, shook off the last few drops, and zipped himself up.
Then he grinned, like a fox eating shit from a barbed wire fence. “So,” said Mr. Wednesday. “You've had time to think, Shadow. Do you want a job?”
